Zoology and wildlife conservation

Rearing in light regimes of constant light, darkness or a combination of the two during the first four days of adult life affects the courtship behavior of Drosophila melanogaster. The light regimes lead to a positive assortative mating pattern. Shortest copulation latencies are observed for males and females reared in the same light regime. The females' communication signals to males and the frequency of males' copulation attempts mediate the assortative mating. The effects of light regime-modulated behavioral changes on motor performance, circadian rhythms and visual processing are discussed.

Unpaired males wood-warblers, which sing two types of song, A and B, sing A songs more frequently during both breeding and non-breeding periods. The B songs appear to be unimportant in mate attraction. Data from the non-breeding season shows that the mate attraction function of song is not restricted to the breeding season. This reveals that male warblers honestly signal their pairing status through the distinguishable singing behavior in a monogamous species.